Person
Grant Best
Also known as Best
- U.S. Air Force Security Forces (1996 to about 2014, by his account); patrolman and later game warden at Vandenberg AFB, about 2002–2008
Grant Best served in U.S. Air Force Security Forces from December 1996 until about 2014, by his own account. He was stationed at Beale Air Force Base, at Howard Air Force Base in Panama for its handover, and at Altus on 11 September 2001, then at Vandenberg Air Force Base from early 2002 until 2008, first on a regular Security Forces flight under Jeffrey Nuccetelli and later as a game warden on the base's horse patrol. He deployed to Iraq at the end of October 2003.
On Nuccetelli's podcast in October 2025 he said that around 15 or 16 October 2003, alone on a foggy night patrol by the flight line, he called in an unauthorized aircraft: a silent, lit, layered object "like a Rubik's cube stretched out", close to the size of a football field, which came down near the flight line for about 15 seconds without landing and then left towards the coast. The next day, he says, three men in casual clothes who said they were OSI asked him routine questions; nothing followed.
His account differs in places from Nuccetelli's version of it. He says the object did not land, dates it within days of the red square rather than a week or more later, describes the OSI questioning as routine rather than hostile, and says the picture of the craft is an AI image made from his description, not a drawing. He had forgotten the event until Nuccetelli called him about a year before the interview, and at the time took it for "a really big drone". He names no other witness.
Sources: The Jeff Nuccetelli Podcast (20 October 2025)
Facts and claims
- claimed He says he joined the Air Force on 4 December 1996, served at Beale, Howard in Panama and Altus, then at Vandenberg from early 2002 until 2008, deploying to Iraq on Halloween 2003, and left the service around 2014. — Grant Best Source: Grant Best, Air Force Security Forces: Vandenberg UAP eye-witness encounters at 3:24
- claimed He says that around 15 or 16 October 2003, on a foggy night patrol by the flight line, he called in an unauthorized aircraft: a silent, lit object close to the size of a football field, “a square multi-layer” shape “almost like a Rubik's cube stretched out”, which came down near the flight line for about 15 seconds and left towards the coast. — Grant Best Source: Grant Best, Air Force Security Forces: Vandenberg UAP eye-witness encounters at 41:19
- claimed He says “It didn't land”: it came close to landing, stayed for about 15 seconds and was gone, at a speed he says no one aboard could have survived. — Grant Best Source: Grant Best, Air Force Security Forces: Vandenberg UAP eye-witness encounters at 36:36
- claimed He says that the next day three men in casual clothes who “said they were OSI” asked what he saw and met him at the flight line to see where he had stood; he was not in trouble, and nothing followed. — Grant Best Source: Grant Best, Air Force Security Forces: Vandenberg UAP eye-witness encounters at 53:01
- claimed He says he had forgotten the event until Nuccetelli called him about a year before the interview, and that at the time he took it for “just a really big drone”; the picture of the craft is an AI image made from his description. — Grant Best Source: Grant Best, Air Force Security Forces: Vandenberg UAP eye-witness encounters at 46:22
Connected files
Incidents
- Vandenberg “Red Square” incident (witness)
People
- Jeffrey Nuccetelli (worked with) — Nuccetelli was his supervisor in Vandenberg's Security Forces
- Chaz King (worked with) — Both served on the Security Forces flights at Vandenberg in October 2003